Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/252

My hart I doo rejoyce, O Gods, that mortall folk mee call
Their king and father, thinking mee ay myndfull of their weale,
And that myne offspring should doo well your selves doo show such zeale.
For though that you doo attribute your favor to desert,
Considring his most woondrous acts: yit I too for my part
Am bound unto you. Nerethelesse, for that I would not have
Your faythfull harts without just cause in fearfull passions wave,
I would not have you of the flames in Oeta make account.
For as he hath all other things, so shall he them surmount.
Save only on that part that he hath taken of his mother,
The fyre shall have no power at all. Eternall is the tother,
The which he takes of mee, and cannot dye, ne yeeld to fyre.
When this is rid of earthly drosse, then will I lift it hygher,
And take it unto heaven: and I beleeve this deede of myne
Will gladsome bee to all the Gods. If any doo repyne,
If any doo repyne, I say, that Hercule should become
A God, repyne he still for mee, and looke he sowre and glum.
But let him know that Hercules deserveth this reward,
And that he shall ageinst his will alow it afterward.
The Gods assented everychone. And Juno seemd to make
No evill countnance to the rest, untill hir husband spake
The last. For then her looke was such as well they might perceyve,
Shee did her husbands noting her in evil part conceyve.
Whyle Jove was talking with the Gods, as much as fyre could waste
So much had fyre consumde. And now, O Hercules, thou haste
No carkesse for to know thee by. That part is quyght bereft
Which of thy mother thou didst take. Alonly now is left
The likenesse that thou tookst of Jove. And as the Serpent slye
In casting of his withered slough, renewes his yeeres thereby,
And wexeth lustyer than before, and looketh crisp and bryght
With scoured scales: so Hercules as soone as that his spryght
Had left his mortall limbes, gan in his better part to thryve,
And for to seeme a greater thing than when he was alyve,
And with a stately majestie ryght reverend to appeere.
His myghty father tooke him up above the cloudy spheere,
And in a charyot placed him among the streaming starres.
Huge Atlas felt the weyght thereof. But nothing this disbarres